Salad platter

Decorated green salad

Salad Chilli and garlic

Salad is a mixture of cold foods, usually including vegetables and/or fruits, often with a dressing, occasionally nuts or croutons, and sometimes with the addition of meat, fish, pasta, cheese, or whole grains. Salad is often served as an appetizer before a larger meal.

The word "salad" comes from the French salade of the same meaning, which in turn is from the Latin salata, "salty", from sal, "salt", (See also sauce, salsa, sausage).

Green salad

The "green salad" or "garden salad" is most often composed of some vegetables, built up on a base of leaf vegetables such as one or more lettuce varieties, spinach, or rocket (arugula). The salad leaves are cut or torn into bite-sized fragments and tossed together (called a tossed salad), or may be placed in a predetermined arrangement.

Other common vegetables in a green salad include cucumbers, peppers, mushrooms, onions, spring onions, red onions, avocado, carrots, celery, and radishes. Other ingredients such as tomatoes, pasta, olive, hard boiled egg, artichoke hearts, heart of palm, roasted red peppers, cooked potatoes, rice, sweetcorn, green beans, black beans, croutons, cheeses, meat (e.g. bacon, chicken), or fish (e.g. tuna, shrimp) are sometimes added to salads. In a restaurant, a small salad without meat is called a dinner salad. The entree salads may contain chicken, either grilled or fried chicken fingers on top of the salad, or seafood in the form of grilled or fried shrimp, or a fish steak, such as tuna, mahi-mahi, or salmon. Steak such as sirloin can be grilled and sliced and placed upon the salad.

Popular types of garden salads

• Caesar salad
• Chef salad
• Chinese chicken salad
• Cobb salad
• Greek salad
• Michigan salad

Dressings

A green salad is often served with a dressing. Some examples include:

• Balsamic vinegar
• Caesar dressing
• Creamy mayonnaise or yoghurt-based dressings:
  • Bleu cheese or blue cheddar dressing
  • Louis dressing
  • Ranch dressing
  • Russian dressing
  • Honey Dijon
  • Thousand Island dressing
• Oil and vinegar, lemon, or soy sauce based dressings:
  • French dressing
  • Italian dressing
  • Vinaigrette
  • Wafu dressing
• Tahini
• Hummus

The concept of salad dressing varies across cultures. There are many commonly used salad dressings in North America. Traditional dressings in southern Europe are vinaigrettes, while mayonnaise is predominant in eastern European countries and Russia. In Denmark dressings are often based on crème fraîche. In China, where Western salad is a recent adoption from Western cuisine, the term salad dressing (???, shalajiang) tends to refer to mayonnaise or mayonnaise-based dressings.

Many light edible oils are used as salad dressings, including olive oil, corn oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, etc.

Garnishes

There are various vegetables and other fare that are often added to garden salads. Some of them are:

A Green Salad

• anchovies
• bacon bits (real or imitation)
• beetroot
• bell peppers
• grated carrots
• cress
• croutons
• cucumbers
• fresh parsley
• mushrooms
• onions (often red onions)
• radishes
• sunflower seeds (shelled)
• surimi - artificial crab meat
• tomatoes

Again, individual taste usually governs the choice of salad garnishes.

Other types of salad

Sesame noodle salad

A Watergate salad

A fruit salad

A Som Tam, Green Papaya Salad

• Antipasto salad
• Bean salad
• Blackford Salad
• Caesar salad
• Chef salad
• Chicken salad
• Chinese chicken salad
• Cobb salad
• Coleslaw
• Congealed salad
• Crab Louie salad
• Egg salad
• Eggplant salad
• Fattoush
• Fruit salad
• Greek salad
• Ham salad
• Israeli salad
• Larb, from Laos
• Milner salad
• Maritz salad
• Michigan salad
• Niçoise salad
• Panzanella
• Pasta salad
• Pea salad
• Polish salad
• Potato salad
• Russian salad
• Pretzel salad
  • Ivanov Salad
• Salmagundi
• Sesame Noodle Salad
• Shopska salad from Bulgaria
• Somen salad from Japan
• Som tam (Thai ?????) or Green Papaya Salad from Thailand
• G?i ngó sen - a Vietnamese salad
• G?i cá sanh c?m - from Hue province,Vietnam
• G?i cá trích - from Phu Quoc island, Kien Giang province, Vietnam
• N?m rau mu?ng - from northern Vietnam; made with Ipomoea aquatica
• N?m hoa chu?i - from northern Vietnam
• Th?t gà xé phay - from Vietnam
• Tabouli
• Taco salad
• Tuna salad
• Tuna salad niçoise
• Waldorf salad
• Watergate salad

History

The diarist John Evelyn wrote a book on salads, Acetaria: A Discourse on Sallets (1699), that describes the new salad greens like "sellery" (celery), coming out of Italy and the Netherlands.

Recently, salads have been sold commercially in supermarkets for those who do not have time to prepare a home-made salad, at restaurants (restaurants will often have a "Salad Bar" laid out with salad-making ingredients which the customer will use to put together their salad) and at fast-food chains specialising in health food. Fast-food chains such as McDonalds and KFC that typically sell "junk food" such as hamburgers, fries and fried chicken have begun selling packaged salads in order to appeal to the health-conscious.

Largest salad

On September 29, 2007, Pulpí, in Almería (province), Spain tossed the world's largest salad, with 1,803,780 pounds of lettuce, tomato, onion, pepper and olives, supervised by 20 cooks over 3 hours. A Guinness World Records judge was present to confirm the new record. The salad was prepared in a container 18m (59ft) long and 4.8m (15.7ft) wide.^[1]

References

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